


i don't love you but i always will

by satellites (brella)



Category: Morning Glories
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/M, Relationship Study, Unresolved Romantic Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-01
Updated: 2013-11-01
Packaged: 2017-12-31 03:24:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,752
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1026691
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brella/pseuds/satellites
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five times Hunter convinced himself he was over Casey, and the one time she convinced him he never would be.</p>
            </blockquote>





	i don't love you but i always will

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mumblingmaria](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mumblingmaria/gifts).



> I never know what the fuck I'm doing when I write for this fandom.  
> Requested by Maria.

**01.**

You’re over her. You really are.

“I’m over her,” you mutter under your breath, just to drive the point home, even though you can barely hear yourself over the downpour raging around you. “I totally am. Totally. I was practically never even under her. I’m completely over her. Ta-da. Done.”

“What are you  _babbling_  about back there, nerd?” Zoe shrieks wrathfully.

You pull a grimace, frivolously trying to wipe away the rain dribbling into your eyes. You can only sort of half-distinguish Zoe’s form a few paces in front of you, but a burst of lightning flares just long enough to give you a clear look at her rage-contorted face.

You’re about to start mentally composing your last will and testament when your foot plunges ankle-deep into a puddle of mud.

“Perfect,” you whisper flatly, shoulders slumping. “That’s – that’s just awesome. Everything about this is  _so_  awesome. Woodruuuun, yeah, whoo…”

“Something is troubling you,” Jun comments frankly from behind you. You find it  _pretty ironic_  that he, of all people, has the nerve to accuse you of seeming troubled, when he’s been squinting all mysteriously and distractedly at the trees for the past three hours.

“Uh, y-yeah,” you grunt back before you can think to hold it in, and you jiggle your foot in midair to try to shake off some of the mud. “Well, yeah, but it’s… it’s no big deal, man. Really. I’m just—yeah.”

“I see,” Jun mutters. Out of the corner of your eye you can see him trudging along beside you. You know that he could be infinite paces ahead of both you and Zoe if he wanted to, but he’s been keeping with your pace since you’d all left the field behind the school, because that’s just the way he is. “I know that now is likely not the best time to talk, but if you need to, I am here.”

“Thanks,” you tell him dully. You’re pretty sure that you’ve had your fill of rain for at least the next twenty centuries, because your shirt is clinging uncomfortably to your skin and your knees are knocking into each other and your teeth are chattering, and the clumps of hair plastered across your forehead are sending cold rivulets down the sides of your nose, and your feet make squelching noises in your sodden socks with every clumsy step. And also, the map is totally illegible.

You wonder what Casey’s doing. Probably being totally dry and perfect somewhere, winning.

You just wonder this by chance. As a matter of fact, you also take the time to wonder what Jade’s doing, and what Ike’s doing, and what that guy you saw having trouble peeing in the men’s room this morning is doing. See, it’s not like you’re especially concerned with Casey above all other things, because, like you’ve been saying, you’re over her. Completely so. Because really, you can deal with Casey wanting to stay friends; that’s fine! Casey being happy is an Important Thing, and if platonics make her happy, well, then, yeah, that sucks for you, but she’s still  _happy_ , and you guess that’s all you can ask for.

“It is Casey, isn’t it?” Jun asks. Your head jerks so sharply to face him that your neck twinges in protest. Jun is smiling at you, but there’s a rueful tincture in the corners that takes you aback, like he knows exactly what he’s talking about. “I would not worry, Hunter. Sometimes love takes many tries.”

“Oh, I’m – I’m not worried,” you assure with an attempt at a dismissive wave of your hand. “Like I said, over her! No worries!”

You freeze mid-step when the words register properly against the knee-jerk denial, and even though Jun marches ahead, you catch a glimpse of a smirk on his face.

“Also, love, haha,  _no_ , no,” you add clumsily, jogging to catch up. You fall into step beside him and try to pull off a nonchalant stretch but just wind up whacking into a low-hanging branch. “Ow. But seriously – no love here! We’re all good.  _I’m_  all good. I’m not  _that_  far gone, dude, relax.”

“Trust me,” Jun replies, clearly amused, “I am not the one who needs to relax.”  

* * *

 

**02.**

You’re over her when you happen to notice in the middle of Philosophy class that she’s asleep, her chin propped up perfectly on her raised hand, her fingernails leaving tiny crescent indentations in the soft skin of her cheek.

“Who can expound upon the ideas outlined in  _Discourse on Inequality_?” Mr. Meylikhov asks from the front of the room, halting in the middle of his typical path of lecture-pacing. “Miss Blevins?”

You stiffen on her behalf and instinctively start to lean over to swat her in the elbow, but her eyes are already open and sharp with focus and your arm drops from midair. You try to make it look like you just needed to scratch your knee, and you clear your throat, tilting back to your desk, but she doesn’t seem to notice.

“How can you do that?” you inquire at the end of the class, stuffing your notebooks harum-scarum back into your messenger bag.

“Do what?” she replies, sounding distracted. Her backpack is already slung on one shoulder and she’s brushing her hair out of her face, eyes darting furtively to the door.

“Sleep in class,” you elaborate. A dry voice in the back of your head adds,  _Sleep at all, actually, considering where we are_. Then you just start thinking about what she’d look like asleep in an actual bed, in those polka-dot pajama shorts you saw her wearing once when you’d gone over to ask Jade for the English reading, and you sort of forget where you are. Whoops.

You’re still over her, though. Note to self.

She shrugs, the edges of her lips slipping dramatically downwards in a noncommittal curve.

“It’s practically the only place I  _can_  sleep,” she says, her eyes wandering the walls with weariness. “Jade’s been having more nightmares, so.”

“Oh,” you say uselessly. Your fingers twiddle against the leather strap of your bag, and your spine smarts from slouching. And then, out of nowhere, the stupid part of you conjures up a further, “Just Jade, huh?”

After a second (which you use wisely to mentally pummel yourself), she frowns at you, puzzled; a tiny dent forms between her furrowed eyebrows.

When she doesn’t say anything to explain the expression or answer your question, you start to fidget slightly, glancing aside.

“What?” you finally mumble, your ears heating up.

Taut silence grows between the ticks of the clock over the chalkboard before Casey  _tsk_ s and waves her hand, sighing. She shoulders lightly past you and her arm bumps against your chest, and you’re still over her, by the way, because it’s totally normal for people you’re over to send jolts of prickling violet down your every limb when they accidentally touch you. Right?

Oh, no.

* * *

 

**03.**

You’re over her when the bullet darts through the skin and the bone of your shoulder, and you’re over her when your elbows hit the stone stairs and you tumble, somersaulting and rolling until your teeth sink into your tongue and blood coats the insides of your cheeks. You’re over her when your knees are skinned by the dirt, when you stumble blindly into the trees with your hand clutching the hole in your body, when you turn to look gracelessly over your shoulder at the night-doused ruins of the tower that had turned your tongue to a stranger’s.

You’re over her when you fall onto your cheek over the forest floor, pebbles pressing into you from all sides, and you’re over her while you lie there panting feebly until there’s gravel between your teeth. You’re over her while you cry.

You know that you’re over her because the reason you’d looked back had definitely not been that you’d hoped to see her chasing after you the way she had been only a few hours ago, shouting out your name. You know that you’re over her because as you go through the process of probably dying alone in the woods, you definitely don’t wrench your eyes shut and try to picture her sneakers appearing in front of your nose, her fingers digging into your wound until all of the pain is pulled out like a string, her quiet voice assuring you that things are okay and always will be.

You hear footsteps, and you don’t know if it’s your imagination or not. But when you manage to screw one eye open and discern the shape of the blur in front of you, you see that it isn’t a pair of blue tennis shoes and red gym shorts.

“Oh no— _look_  at you,” a voice chides. “Pretty nasty wound you got there.”

It’s not sunny and fiery and fierce, and it’s not the protruding curve of Casey’s wristbone on the hand being offered to you, but that’s okay, because you’re over her.

Really, you assure yourself as you bleed. You are.

* * *

 

**04.**

You’re over her when she kisses you.

Her lips don’t move, at first; they just stay there, right on yours, more of a statement, an explanation, than an action. She tilts away, whispers your name against your mouth, and kisses you again, and this time her hands frame your neck and her middle finger presses against the nape and that’s when you first realize that she’s taller than you.

The whole line of her body is angled slightly forward and your hand is still holding the fountain pen over your Ancient Religions notes, and your eyes are locked onto hers, and your chest is suddenly a yawning chamber where your heart is thundering out a timpanic symphony.

It’s the second time you see Casey Blevins lose her composure, because when she pulls away again, when she drops her forehead against yours and her shoulders scrunch forward, something wet drips onto your face from her tightly closed eyes.

“Casey, why—” you start to ask, in a voice so dry it hurts your throat, but she shakes her head against yours, sniffling quietly.

“I don’t know, I just—” She bites her lip and slackens even further, her hands gripping your neck more tightly, even though they’re shaking. “I just, I… Please don’t ask me. Okay?”

The last time she had cried like this, like a rapidly crumbling child whose only anchor was your uncertain arms, you hadn’t asked, either. You never ask, because you know she’ll never answer. You know she’s sick of answers, of questions, of words and analyses and plans; you know she’s beyond speaking half the time, even though you never know what it is that makes her sob so despairingly, and you know even less why she lets you see her do it.

Your hands have never done the things you want to do to her. Your mouth has never come close to forming the words you want to say. You drop the pen and push her chin up with your index finger and compensate for the terrified lack of knowing with the brush of your dry lips on hers, and when she settles, when she presses herself closer to you until your teeth are touching and you’re certain she’s about to swallow you, when her knees are spread at either side of your hips and you forget exactly what she hadn’t wanted you to ask about in the first place—when her taste blocks any sentences you could string out, when she hugs you one more time before gathering up her things and leaving without a word, you’re over her.

For real this time.

(It’s a terrible idea, you know, to want to touch somebody this badly when you could both be ritually sacrificed at any second, so you wash your hands with Ike’s soap until your palms are raw and, like… that’s that, you guess.)

 

 

* * *

 

 **05.**   

You’re over her when Weird Cryptic Future Jade opens the door. You  _had_  been, anyway; you’d been so  _sure_  of it, of how little you wanted to follow Casey to the farthest horizon she could reach if push ever came to shove, but somewhere in the electrified air there had been a molecule of conviction that had propelled your feet toward her.

You lose track of how many times you cry out her name, of how many times she doesn’t respond. You hate yourself for ever wanting to run away from her, for ever wanting to avoid meeting her eye. You stop yourself from tripping on the cold ground and as you round the corner, as you see the waves of disordered blonde whipping in the gusts you can’t feel, you reach an arm out as if to take her hand, even though she’s too far out of reach, just like she always is. You hear a thousand voices crawling up the walls and scrubbing at your skin.

“A sacrifice is always demanded,” Weird Cryptic Future Jade had murmured regretfully into the open room, and you’re sure that she’d thought you wouldn’t hear her, but you had anyway.

You had shoved past her, your shins burning, and snapped back, over your shoulder, already halfway gone, “I’m not doing this because it’s demanded; I’m doing it because I love her!” And there it is, laid bare, for no one to see.

_Your life isn’t one of your stupid comic books, Hunter; get your head out of the clouds and put it where it’s needed. You are special. I’m so proud of you. Sometimes love takes many tries. It’s time to stop running. I thought you were very brave. Very brave. Very brave._

Brave, you think a little proudly into your pillow some nights. Brave, not stupid.

Because, see, only stupid people wouldn’t be over Casey Blevins yet.

  
  
  


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

**+.**

“What happened?” you ask, and your voice feels too heavy for your throat, even though she weighs practically nothing in your arms.

Her hair is scattered askew over her face, and her eyelids are sleepily low, and it doesn’t feel right, her being so limp and so drained, her skin being so pallid.

“I…” The sound is bare and breakable. After a moment, her eyes widen under the chaotic blonde and her chapped lips peel apart to accommodate a gasp. Her spine stiffens in your hands. “I don’t remember.”

You don’t know what to do, how to respond, so you just stay the way you are, cradling her awkwardly, willing your arms not to scoop her closer until her face is nestled against the crook of your neck. Delirium sifts behind the glassy blue of her eyes, and her eyebrows are upturned distraughtly, but after a moment, clarity sharpens in the farthest caverns of her gaze and she focuses on you, dead-on.

“I remember you,” she murmurs, sounding surprised. Something tickles the skin over your jaw and makes your skin shiver, and you realize that she’s touching you, examining you. The cylinder hums steadily behind the both of you, refracting eerie light onto her arms. “I… I remember you.”

It should scare you, you guess, how much those three words said in that frightening context make you want to crush her against you until you don’t know where you end and she begins, until the breath in your lungs is permanently a part of hers. You  _love_  her, you realize, and there’s no cinematic crescendo or panic chord; a part of you has known for a while, probably, that you long ago crossed the line between being in love and loving.

It’s the worst freaking time to come to terms with it, too; it’s the worst  _freaking_  time to finally notice how much you’ve been lying to yourself every time you’ve muttered under your breath that you’re over her, over the way her hair scoops up sunlight and never lets it go, over the way your arms hold up her weight so easily when she hugs you. The center of your forehead starts to throb dully from a phantom pain you can’t place, and Casey’s out of it again, groaning blearily and wincing. The pads of your fingers find the nape of her neck and circle it.

“It’s okay,” you whisper again. You’ve said it so many times already, in so many different ways. You can remember her whole body shaking as she had sobbed into your shoulder until her throat was raw. “I got you.”

It’s a promise this time. Maybe it always has been.


End file.
